Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40287980›Full record

ArticleCancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology2025

AI-assisted Diagnosis of Nonmelanoma Skin Cancer in Resource-Limited Settings.

Spencer Ellis, Steven Song, Derek Reiman, Xuan Hui, Renyu Zhang, Mohammad Hasan Shahriar, Maria Argos, Mohammed Kamal, Christopher R Shea, Robert L Grossman and 2 more

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

12 authors.

Spencer Ellis *Departments of Pathology and Family Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.ORCID 0009-0001-8022-3700
Steven Song *Department of Computer Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.ORCID 0000-0001-5868-3877
Derek Reiman *Toyota Technical Institute at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.ORCID 0000-0002-7955-3980
Xuan HuiDepartment of Public Health Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.ORCID 0000-0001-6426-0723
Renyu ZhangDepartment of Computer Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.ORCID 0000-0002-5285-2729
Mohammad Hasan ShahriarInstitute for Population and Precision Health, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.ORCID 0000-0002-1625-0229
Maria ArgosDivision of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.ORCID 0000-0003-4234-252X
Mohammed KamalDepartment of Pathology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University, Dhaka, Bangladesh.ORCID 0000-0001-8430-2628
Christopher R SheaSection of Dermatology, Department of Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.ORCID 0000-0002-3780-8113
Robert L Grossman *Department of Computer Science, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.ORCID 0000-0003-3741-5739
Aly A Khan *Departments of Pathology and Family Medicine, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.ORCID 0000-0003-3933-8538
Habibul Ahsan *Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.ORCID 0000-0001-9808-377X

Funding

MEDICAL SCIENTIST TRAININGT32GM007281 · NIGMS · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · PI CLARK, MARCUS RAMSAY · 1985 to 2022
$32.1M
Chemoprevention of arsenic-induced skin cancerR01CA107431 · NCI · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · PI AHSAN, HABIBUL · 2005 to 2014
$17.3M
Pilot Program CoreP30ES027792 · NIEHS · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · PI Briseis A Aschebrook-Kilfoy · 2017 to 2026
$13.6M
Medical Scientist National Research Service AwardT32GM150375 · NIGMS · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · PI Raghavendra G Mirmira · 2023 to 2026
$5.5M
Unraveling the functional diversity of B cells in health and diseaseDP2AI177884 · NIAID · UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO · PI Aly Azeem Khan · 2023 to 2026
$1.9M
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI)National Cancer Institute (NCI) R01CA107431National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) DP2AI177884National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (DEHS) P30ES027792National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) T32GM007281NCI NIH HHS R01 CA107431NIAID NIH HHS DP2 AI177884NIEHS NIH HHS P30 ES027792NIGMS NIH HHS T32 GM007281NIGMS NIH HHS T32 GM150375
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundEarly and precise diagnosis is vital to improving patient outcomes and reducing morbidity. In resource-limited settings, cancer diagnosis is often challenging due to shortages of expert pathologists. We assess the effectiveness of general-purpose pathology foundation models (FM) for the diagnosis and annotation of nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) in resource-limited settings.

methodsWe evaluated three pathology FMs (UNI, PRISM, and Prov-GigaPath) using deidentified NMSC histology images from the Bangladesh Vitamin E and Selenium Trial to predict cancer subtype based on zero-shot whole-slide embeddings. In addition, we evaluated tile aggregation methods and machine learning models for prediction. Lastly, we employed few-shot learning of PRISM tile embeddings to perform whole-slide annotation.

resultsWe found that the best model used PRISM's aggregated tile embeddings to train a multilayer perceptron model to predict NMSC subtype [mean area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) = 0.925, P < 0.001]. Within the other FMs, we found that using attention-based multi-instance learning to aggregate tile embeddings to train a multilayer perceptron model was optimal (UNI: mean AUROC = 0.913, P < 0.001; Prov-GigaPath: mean AUROC = 0.908, P < 0.001). We finally exemplify the utility of few-shot annotation in computation- and expertise-limited settings.

conclusionsOur study highlights the important role FMs may play in confronting public health challenges and exhibits a real-world potential for machine learning-aided cancer diagnosis. IMPACT: Pathology FMs offer a promising pathway to improve early and precise NMSC diagnosis, especially in resource-limited environments. These tools could also facilitate patient stratification and recruitment for prospective clinical trials aimed at improving NMSC management.

Indexed as

Skin NeoplasmsBangladeshFemaleHumansMachine LearningMaleResource-Limited Settings

Identifiers

PMID40287980
PMCPMC12209823

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.